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Senator Sarah Hanson-Young: “It seems ridiculous to me that a company that can take hundreds of millions of Australian taxpayer dollars in exchange for locking up children, doesn’t require an assessment of the character of the individuals involved”. Photo: ABC/Four Corners Senator Sam Dastyari: “The business model is built around ‘We will allow you to engage in practices for a small fee that would otherwise be illegal in your host country’.” Photo: Australian Broadcasting Corporation/Four Corners

Law firm Mossack Fonseca helped conceal the identities of the directors of major government contractor Wilson Security. Photo: Australian Broadcasting Corporation/Four Corners

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The company entrusted by the Australian government to guard offshore detention centres, the Defence department and the Tax Office has been implicated in the unprecedented leak of shell company records that exposes the murky world of tax havens.

Controversial law firm Mossack Fonseca helped conceal the identities of the directors of major government contractor Wilson Security, ABC’s Four Corners reported on Monday.

More than 11.5 million documents sparked a 12-month investigation by international media groups led by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Buried among the cache of leaked documents was a courier envelope that lead to Wilson’s shell company in the British Virgin Islands, Four Corners reported.

Wilson Security has won more than $400 million in government contracts overseeing sensitive operations for the Australian Taxation Office and the Commonwealth Law Courts, the Department of Immigration and Border Patrol.

“I mean it seems ridiculous to me that a company that can take hundreds of millions of Australian taxpayer dollars in exchange for locking up children, doesn’t require an assessment of the character of the individuals involved. I mean where else would that be acceptable? ” Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young told Four Corners.

The address for Wilson Security’s holding company on the courier envelope was the same address for Mossack Fonseca’s headquarters in the British Virgin Islands.

And among the leaked files were the names of Wilson’s holding company’s original directors, which included two Hong Kong billionaires Raymond and Thomas Kwok.

In 2012, the brothers were charged in one of the biggest bribery cases in Hong Kong’s history just as Wilson Security was preparing to bid for Australian government contracts worth billions of dollars.

The brothers resigned as directors from Wilson’s holding company based in the British Virgin Islands, but two new entities then appeared as directors.

The leaked documents showed these new directors, Harmony Core and Winsome Sky, were run by the Kwoks, revealing Mossack Fonseca had helped the brothers hide their directorships of the company controlling Wilson Security, Four Corners reported.

In December 2014, Thomas Kwok was convicted of the bribery offences and sentenced to five years in prison in Hong Kong. His brother Raymond Kwok was acquitted of all charges

Wilson Security said in a statement to Four Corners that the Kwoks are not and never have been directors of WIlson Security.

The unprecedented data leak showed more than 1000 Australian links, including the passports of hundreds of Australian citizens connected to shell companies as owners, directors and shareholders.

The files show how Mossack Fonseca thwarted Australian regulators and police inquiries, continued to act for individuals accused of fraud and embezzlement, and lobbied actively to prevent Australia from signing agreements that would allow the exchange of tax information with Samoa, a key tax avoidance jurisdiction.

The Australian Taxation Office is investigating more than 800 high net wealth Australians in Mossack Fonseca client list.

“What is the business model of these tax havens? Be it the Cayman Islands, the British Virgins Islands, be it Panama, the business model is built around ‘We will allow you to engage in practices for a small fee that would otherwise be illegal in your host country.’ That’s the business model,” he said.

The leak exposes a trail of dark money flowing through the global financial system, stripping national treasuries of tax revenue.

Clients of Mossack Fonseca include the prime minister of Iceland and Pakistan, close friends of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, an alleged bagman for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a close friend of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and companies linked to the family of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Add to those the monarchs of Saudi Arabia and Morocco; Middle Eastern royalty; leaders of FIFA, the international body that controls international soccer; and 29 billionaires included in Forbes Magazine’s list of the world’s 500 richest people.

Also mentioned are 61 relatives and associates of current country leaders, and 128 current or former politicians and public officials.

While most investors and corporations who use tax havens have legitimate reasons to use these structures, the leaked records also show some companies domiciled in tax havens were being used for suspected money laundering, arms and drug deals, and tax avoidance.

This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.